Dover readies for a safe NASCAR weekend

Wednesday

May 28, 2008 at 12:01 AMMay 28, 2008 at 10:58 PM

First responders prepare for race weekend

Ryan Mignone

As 140,000 rabid race fans fill Dover International Speedway this weekend, a number of emergency personnel will be there as well, keeping a watchful eye on the festivities.
According to Paul Strochine, assistant chief with the Dover Fire Department, six or seven firefighters will be staffed in shifts that begin at 9 a.m. Thursday and last until the traffic subsides after the race Sunday. Dover firemen won’t be on the grounds during off-peak hours between 1 and 7 a.m. each day, but they will respond to the speedway area from their two city fire stations.
This year, all firefighters on site will have triage training in the event of a mass casualty incident.
The first responders’ arsenal includes four firefighters on an engine, two roving the grounds in a brush truck and a supervising officer. The brush truck serves a twofold purpose — helping to quash small campground fires and doing reconnaissance through the throngs of people to keep an eye on any road closures.
Strochine added their job is to make sure everyone is safe, and that most fans are receptive to the firefighters, which is important as it’s necessary to build relationships in the event of a large-scale disaster.
As far as what firefighters get to see, Strochine said the spectators can make it quite an interesting weekend.
“You see everything from large parties and a lot of antics to a lot of chaos,” he said.
Firefighter Matt Carey said the fans treat them with first-class respect and has never had a problem keeping them in check.
“They know we’re not out there to be hard-nosed,” he said. “They work with us.”
Assistant Chief Glenn Whitt said throughout the years, emergency workers have seen gas leaks in trailers which have lead to fires, and lightning strikes that killed a couple of fans.
“We can have life threatening emergencies out there to someone cutting their finger and need a Band-Aid or need directions. We do a lot of that,” he said.
It’s fun to meet fans, and the firefighters oftentimes see the same faces each year, people who welcome them with plenty of sodas, coffee and barbecue from the grill.
Paramedics ready to respond
Meanwhile, Chief Colin Faulkner, director of Public Safety for Kent County, said he’ll deploy 29 to 30 paramedics and six dispatchers over the four-day period. During the race, some paramedics work on rescue trucks in the event of a wreck on the Monster Mile. He said they received specialized training to attend to the drivers.
“There is nothing typical about a racecar on the track,” he said.
And depending on how high the mercury can rise, Faulkner said they could deal with heat-related incidents and problems such as the worsening of pre-existing medical conditions including diabetes and chest pain, along with cardiac arrests.
On site they will have a command communications truck serving as a portable 911 center, golf cart-like vehicles with stretchers and medics on bicycles.
“The whole idea behind the service where it involves advance life support is to get the medical care to them as quickly as possible,” he said.
Since the Dover area’s population increases dramatically in the days before a race, Faulkner said it’s a balancing act to keep paramedics staffed at the speedway, while maintaining a level of service to the citizens in the county. For this reason, he hires medics from New Castle and Sussex for the weekend.
“We look at this as creating a city within a city,” he said. “We try to set it up so they function independently.”
Faulkner said the many emergency agencies prepare months in advance for each race weekend, and often function as a well-oiled machine.
Strochine works with Dover International Speedway representatives, sifting through changes to traffic patterns, maps and additions to the hotel. They also prepare documents and action plans for use in the event of a catastrophic incident.
Echoing Faulkner, Strochine said that despite the increased manpower at the racetrack, at no point during the weekend is service compromised in the city. Many of the volunteer firefighters rearrange their schedules to accommodate staffing at the city’s two fire stations. He added while working on site at the racetrack, firefighters are compensated per each hour they work.
Although it takes months of preparation in advance for the race weekend, the day-to-day operations don’t really change each year, Strochine said.
Ed Klima, director of emergency services for Dover International Speedway, said they stand up a lot of resources and it takes a lot of teamwork between many first-responders. As an example, he noted that if a 911 call is made on the speedway grounds, the patient contact time is 1 minute and 20 seconds. They’ve been keeping track of that time since 2000, he said.
“The cooperation here in central Delaware is unbelievable,” Klima said.
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